


stunned minds (full of junk-goods)

by orphan_account



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All of the sudden, someone screams. Minho jerks away from the wall in shock as the noise comes again, reverberating through the still air of the Maze, sharp and shrill. Suddenly, Minho remembers that Newt has Section Five today."</p><p>Newt's suicide attempt, where Minho finds him instead of Alby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stunned minds (full of junk-goods)

**Author's Note:**

> Can be interpreted as either Book!Verse or Movie!Verse. Major triggers for suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide. This is very much pre-slash.

The maze has three general rules, all of which most runners pick up on rather quickly. First is the doors - they close at six p.m. every day, like clockwork, and open again every morning at six a.m.. Twelve hours to run the maze. Second is the walls - they only shift at night. And third, and probably most importantly, in regards to survival, is the fact that the Grievers only come out at night, too. 

As far as Minho knows, none of these rules have ever been broken. Of course, they could have been - a depressingly high number of runners have set out in the morning and not come back in the afternoon, and maybe that’s what happened to them. They hit a pack of Grievers, or they got trapped between two shifting walls. But it seems more likely that they just exhausted themselves, ran themselves too ragged to make it back to the Glade on time, too ragged to remember the route back to the Doors.

Minho reaches down and adjusts his shirt where it’s riding up on his stomach. It used to chafe, his first few weeks in here, but then he started running, and he lost some weight, and now it’s loose enough that it usually just drifts around him, letting the breeze right through. 

 _Maybe you should trade with me,_ Newt had said the first time he saw the billowing fabric of Minho’s shirt. _It’d probably fit you._

Minho had laughed, reaching forward to adjust the strap of the tank top. _Nah, you need it. You’d just drown in mine._

Newt is out running today too, Minho thinks. He’s not entirely sure, hadn’t seen Newt leave in the morning like he usually does, but when Minho woke, the burlap hammock next to Minho’s had been swinging loose, empty. It was strange, Minho remembered thinking, because usually he and Newt would go together to the Homestead in the morning and eat breakfast together before they set out into the Maze. _Maybe Newt just wasn’t in the mood today,_ Minho thinks now, his feet hitting against the path harder than they probably should. _Or maybe he wanted to sit with someone other than me, Alby or Gally. Maybe he’s just sick of me._

No, Minho pushes the thought from his mind. There’s no use thinking stuff like that. Newt is his best friend in the Maze, probably the only person he trusts fully around here, and if he starts doubting him now - 

Minho rounds a dusty corner, dropping a rock in the center of the pathway as he does so. He commits the spot to memory: _left at the T-bone, after right at the intersection and straight down an elbow bend._ He jogs a little bit farther, following the path down a one-way bend, and then falters, shoes skittering on the dusty ground. Dead end.

He moves to turn around, and then stops. Turning back slowly, he cocks his head to the side, listening. He can hear something, a sort of - wailing sound. It didn’t really sound like a Griever but it could be. That is, if the Griever’s came out during the daytime. Sure, it’s pretty late afternoon and Minho is already on his meandering way back to the Glade anyway, just checking a few loose ends, but - but. Still. The Grievers would _still_ be coming out over an hour before they are supposed to.

Minho takes a tentative stop towards the wall. The closer he gets to the rock the louder the sound becomes, but it’s still faint. Carefully, he reaches out and presses his fingertips against the wall, between the curling vines: nothing happens. No sharp blades dart out from the stone, no Griever’s dart out from an unseen hole in the wall. Slowly, Minho presses his ear against the rock face. Through the rock, he feels the vibrations of noise.

 _It’s a - person,_ Minho thinks. The vibrations almost sound like someone’s voice, or maybe someone keening. It seems like they’re on the other side of the wall. He glances up at the two hundred feet of rock face, and the vines that climb up to the halfway point before disappearing. He presses his ear back against the wall.

 _Definitely someone crying,_ Minho thinks, and frowns. _Who’s out there? Obviously a runner, but what section_ \- he thinks for a second, retracing his steps and trying to recall the section. _Seven, right - or, no, it was five, not seven. Who has section five today?_

He presses his ear closer to the wall. If he can just hear what the runner is saying - 

And then, suddenly, someone screams. Minho jolts away from the wall in shock. The noise comes again, sharp, shrill, and suddenly Minho remembers that _Newt_ has section five.

“Shuck, shuck, shuck,” Minho mumbles, taking a few halting steps backward, still staring at the wall. Another scream comes. “Shuck!” He spins around and sprints in the opposite direction without the conscious decision to do so. _Newt is screaming,_ he thinks, and he runs faster, spinning around turns without thinking about it. It’s nearing five o’clock, and the sun is beginning to dip in the sky. _Shuck, shuck, shuck._ He had been on his last short path of the day, only a thirty minute jog from the Maze opening. The hour he has left had seemed like _plenty_ of time to get back there - but to get there and back and there again? There was no _way_ he could get Newt out before the doors closed, no _way -_

Minho is built for long, slow distance - this is what they trained him for, what his muscles prepare for, miles upon miles of slow jogs, walking breaks, detours to explore. The last time he even ran fast was _months_ ago, the last time he lost his way in the Maze and had to hurry to get back to wall on time, once he found his path. But even then, he wasn’t _sprinting._

Now that he is, he tires immediately, and after only ten minutes of running, his lungs are burning. He doesn’t care. At a quarter past five, he rounds the corner to the beginning of Section Six, where the glowing blue portal to Section Five sits, waiting for him. Shirt sticking to his chest with sweat, rough pant legs charting painfully against his thighs, he sprints through it without slowing, steps only faltering slightly as he breaks through the blue mist. _Shuck, shuck, shuck,_ he thinks, picking a random entrance into the maze and praying that it is the right one.

He hits a dead end in less than two minutes. Cursing, he whirls around and runs, if possible, even faster out of the entrance, spinning into the next pathway. He doesn’t have _time_ for this…

He takes more wrong turns than he can afford, and only barely manages to memorize the right ones, not even bothering to drop any totems for him to remember. It’s probably a bad idea, but it’s half past five and he still hasn’t found Newt, and if he doesn’t get him soon he is going to _die_ out here, him and Minho, and Minho just can’t - he just can’t let that happen.

“Newt!” he yells finally, when he knows he’s nearing the spot where he’d heard the screaming. “Newt!” The sound reverberates between the cold stone walls, but Minho receives no reply. He rounds a corner and hits a crossroads. He’s about to go right when he hears a faint sound from the left. Without thinking, he changes directions, praying, _praying -_

Newt is sprawled out on the rocky, dusty ground, his left leg askew at an unnatural angle. He’s on his stomach, face pillowed in his forearms, and as Minho gets nearer, he realizes with a sort of sickened horror that the Newt is making a low moaning sound, a gurgle in the back of his throat that sounds like the dying groans of the animals in the Bloodhouse.

“Newt?” Minho cries when he sees him, sprinting right up to Newt and kneeling beside him. “Newt, are you alright?” He looks up and down Newt’s body, cataloguing the damage - his leg, definitely, and there seems to be a way in which Newt is lying which favors his ribs -

Newt just groans in response, the sound coming out like he has to force it through his constricted windpipe. “Where are you hurt?” Minho asks, but he gets nothing. He reaches out and lays a hand on Newt’s shoulder but Newt doesn’t respond. “Newt, we have to get moving.” Because that is his first priority, getting them out of here, because every moment Newt lays here and Minho doesn’t help him is a moment farther away they get from survival. And Newt’s hurt but Minho can help him, Minho can -

Newt says something, but it’s muffled by his arms. Minho reaches out to brush a clump of hair away from where it is covering Newt’s face, but Newt lurches away from the touch. He turns his head up to look at Minho. His face is streaked with tears and grime.

“Leave me _,_ ” he says again, and Minho frowns, brows furrowing.

“Newt, I’m not going to - were you stung?”

The thought only then occurs to him. _Of course he’s been stung, he’s been attacked by a Griever, they don’t leave you alone unless you’ve been stung and he’s already exhibiting the personality changes, oh God,_ Minho thinks. And at the same time: _Oh, please don’t be stung._ Minho imagines what that would mean for Newt, for him: people change after they’re stung, and Newt is - Newt is Minho’s best friend, his only _true_ friend. If he loses that -

“No,” Newt says, interrupting Minho’s thoughts. His voice is cracked like dried paint. “I just - it’s just my leg.”

Minho takes a moment to feel relieved for that, and then pushes it out of his mind as he looks up at the sky. It has to be at least 5:40 now, and it had been at least fifteen minutes out here, at a sprinting speed. There’s no way -

“All right, we’re getting going,” Minho says, reaching out for Newt’s other shoulder and ignoring his flinch this time. _Don’t be hurt by it,_ he reminds himself. _Newt’s allowed to want his personal space._

“Just leave me!” Newt says again, his voice stronger this time, and Minho huffs.

“Look, I’m not leaving without you, shuckface, so you can either help me get both of us out of here or sentence us both to death. Your choice.”

Newt just stares at him for a moment, as if he is trying to decide if Minho is serious. Finally, he huffs, and extends an arm for Minho to grab. Minho pulls him to his feet, and Newt winces the whole way, noticeably flinching at the movement of his ribs, right wrist, and anything attached to his left leg. _Just your leg, huh?_ Minho thinks, but doesn’t say anything.

“We have to get going,” Minho says again, trying to infuse the urgency in his voice, and it works - Newt looks up at the sky and pales a bit.

“We’re never going to make it,” he says.

“Yes, we are, come on.”

“I can’t run on this leg!” Newt looks over at Minho, eyes wide. “You have to leave me!”

“I’m not bloody leaving you!” Minho shouts, almost dropping Newt’s arm out of anger. “Nothing you say will make me want to leave you so just drop it, okay, shank?”

Newt huffs but doesn’t protest. “Then what do you want to do?” he asks, and for a moment Minho considers, glancing around to see if he could make something to _pull_ Newt on, or - or - or _something_ , but there isn’t time -

“Get on my back,” he says finally. Newt gives him a look, and Minho says impatiently, “We don’t have time, and this is the only way, so get on my back!” It takes too long to get Newt hoisted up and even once he is, he isn’t comfortably situated; Minho can feel it in the tense line of his arms, the stiff press of his ribcage against Minho’s shoulder blades.

“We have to get moving,” Minho says, more to remind himself than Newt, and sets off. It’s _hard._ Running while carrying someone is so different than running free, even when that someone is as light as Newt is, as scrawny. He can’t pump his arms because he’s holding Newt’s legs and he can’t stand tall whens someone’s sitting on him and his form is messed up as he tries not to jostle Newt. It’s too slow. He realizes that immediately.

“You have to go faster,” Newt says, almost apologetically, voicing Minho’s thoughts. His voice is slurred and thick with pain. _He’s passing out,_ Minho thinks, even as he speeds up.

“You gotta stay with me,” he says as he runs, faster and faster, he has to go _faster._ His breaths are coming short and fast in his throat, his calves already aching from pushing the extra weight.“If you fall asleep and loose your grip, you go down and I go down with you.” He feels Newt nod, his chin bobbing against the back of Minho’s head. He’s _falling asleep_.

Minho grits his teeth and moves faster, deciding not to worry about Newt staying awake. _He knows what he has to do,_ Minho thinks, and he trusts Newt to do what he has to do. Minho focuses on making the right turns, keeping the right pace, trying to get back before the walls close. He’s barely ever run this fast before, let alone with a _person_ on his back - his lungs are already burning from his earlier escapade and now they seem to be spitting fire. He can taste copper and salt in the back of his throat, and he’s gasping now, more than breathing. _Faster. Further._ Newt’s arms tighten around his shoulders and Newt brushes his lips against the side of Minho’s face in what he might consider a kiss, if Newt were not drugged with pain and probably about to fall off of Minho’s shoulders. _Come on,_ Minho thinks, _come on;_ he _wills_ his legs to move faster, _wills_ the walls to stay open longer, _wills_ everything to just stop conspiring against him for five minutes so he and Newt can _make it -_

The winds start whipping through his hair as he rounds one of the last corners. _Too soon,_ Minho thinks, and, trying not to think about the aching in his arms or legs, runs faster. Faster. Faster. He rounds the last corner and _leaps_ through the portal, feeling Newt bounce on his back, shaking like a bag of bones, his grip faltering around Minho’s shoulders. Minho feels something wet on his lips and he licks them but it is not sweat, it is blood, blood bubbling from the back of his throat - 

He bursts through the walls at the last minute, as they are already closing, as the spires are lining themselves up with their holes. There are Gladers from all stations jogging towards the doors as they close, headed by Alby and Ben. Maybe they noticed they didn’t get back. Maybe they saw them sprinting the last hundred, fifty, twenty meters into the Glade. Ben reaches them first and helps pull the now-unconscious Newt from Minho’s back as Minho sinks to his knees, bent over the green grass, _hacking._ Globs of red blood come up, from where he doesn’t know, and they just keep coming, beautiful contrast against the green plants. He’s so _tired -_

“Shuck it,” Alby says from above Minho, something like disbelief or incredulity in his tone, “what the hell happened to you shanks?”

Minho can’t speak but he manages to stop coughing long enough to look over at Newt, who’s laid out on his back next to him, with Ben knelt beside his head and Jeff examining his leg. Minho bends his head to the ground, pressing his forehead against the grass and probably his own spittle, and thinks, _Thank you, God, if you exist,_ thank you for saving us and thank him for saving him and thank you for saving me to save him, and without knowing it, Minho realizes he’s fallen on his side. He hacks, again, and more blood comes up, but this time it doesn’t fall out of his mouth, just stays there, in the pocket of his cheek. Face pressed against the grass, he opens his eyes a bit, and sees Newt again, the tracks of tears on his cheek, the dirt on the curve of his lip, and he thinks, _beautiful;_ and then Alby’s face is filling his vision and his eyes are sliding closed and then everything goes black.

—

Minho wakes up in the medical tent.

The first thing he registers is the bed - uncomfortable and lumpy, but a bed, not a hammock - and then he registers how _sore_ he is. His legs, his arms, his stomach - hell, his _ankles_ are sore. He had not known there were muscles in ankles that _could_ be sore.

He takes a deep breath, wincing at how it twinges the muscles in his back, then slowly opens his eyes. Brown burlap ceiling, darkened room, check and check. He gives himself a minute, a couple of slow breaths, before he pushes himself up to a sitting position, cracking his head to either side.

The tent is empty, aside from him. There’s a unoccupied chair by his beside, but it’s askew in a way that makes it seem recently vacated. Minho takes another deep breath and this time realizes how much it makes his lungs hurt, not just his muscles. His lungs _sting._ He takes another deep breath, then swings his legs over the side of the mattress. There are shoes sitting beside his bed, just waiting for him to put them on. He moves cautiously.

The first dagger of sunlight makes his eyes burn, and Minho squeezes them shut, recoiling. He almost regrets getting out of bed. He waits, for them to adjust, then, still moving gingerly in deference to his body, starts towards the Homestead.

There are few people in the fields, he realizes. He glances over at the Bloodhouse and realizes there are even fewer there, only one or two scattered amongst the pigpens. He frowns a bit. It’s the middle of the day; why isn’t anyone working? Winston is facing away from Minho, butcher’s knife held high as he chops the leg off of a pig, and Minho is about to go ask him what’s going on, when suddenly, someone grabs Minho’s arm from behind.

Minho startles, whirling around, but it’s only Ben. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ben hisses, head bent and voice quiet, not yelling like he’s trying to be secretive. “You’re supposed to be in bed, you dumb shank!”

“I woke up,” Minho says, and Ben gives him a look, like, _Oh, really, I hadn’t realized._ “I’m fine,” Minho says.

Ben gives him another look. “Less than a day ago you ran until you puked up blood and passed out. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fine’.”

Minho doesn’t even deign that with an answer. Instead, he turns away from Ben, looking back towards the Homestead. “Where is everyone? And where’s Newt?”

Ben doesn’t answer for a moment. “Most of them are in a meeting. There’s a lot of panic going around, especially through the runners, about Newt getting attacked and all that.”

“Wait,” Minho says, turning back with furrowed brows. “Aren’t you supposed to be running right now?”

Ben looks uncharacteristically sheepish, glancing down at his feet. “Uh, we sorta - well, the runners sort of - we didn’t go out today. No one felt safe.”

Minho raises an eyebrow, but Ben still doesn’t meet his eyes, glancing instead over at the field hands, like them spreading manure around tomato plants is just _fascinating_. “You’re saying you guys were too afraid.”

“Well, yeah!” Ben says, finally looking up. “I’m not proud of it but - I mean, Newt got attacked by a Griever, in the middle of the day! Would you feel safe?”

Minho doesn’t answer, choosing instead to pick apart what he’d said. “So that’s what happened, then, Newt told you he got attacked by a Griever?”

Ben looks sheepish again. “Well, no, but what else would it be? It’s not like he, I don’t know, tripped over a rock and broke half a dozen bones, he’s the Keeper of the Runners, Minho, he knows what he’s doing, and -“

“Half a dozen bones!” Minho’s voice is raised loud enough that he might be yelling. In the corner of his eye, he sees Winston stop chopping and glance his way. “Is he awake?”

“Well, no, he’s not strictly speaking ‘awake’, he hasn’t quite - woken up yet, from what I hear, I don’t know, I haven’t seen him, but he certainly hasn’t come down to the meeting to talk with everyone -“

Minho turns away from Ben, not really caring what else he has to say. He has to go find Newt. He has to just - see him, just see that he’s alright and breathing. For all he knows, Newt could have - could have - _died_ up there, could have bled to death or had internal injuries Minho didn’t notice, and maybe Alby is just keeping it quiet to avoid panicking the other Gladers, maybe - Minho pushes the thoughts away. There’s no use thinking like that, at least not until he has more information.

Since Newt wasn’t in the med-jack’s tent, he’s probably upstairs in the Homestead. _Where they take the boys who have been stung,_ Minho thinks, with a sinking feeling in his stomach that, again, he tries to ignore. There was nothing good about this situation.

Minho bursts into the Homestead living room as dramatically as he can when his body feels like it’s made of creaking wood, and immediately a dozen pairs of eyes shoot in his direction. Gally is there, and Alby. Minho takes a stiff step forward. “Where’s Newt.”

It’s not so much a question as a demand, but nobody answers him. “Now, Minho,” Alby says, hands held out in front of him in a placating sort of manner. Minho doesn’t care.

“I don’t care,” Minho says.

“Newt is upstairs sleeping,” Alby says, and immediately Minho moves for the stairs but Gally, who has stepped forward, reaches out to block his way with an arm across the stairwell. Minho glares at him, trying to make it as withering as possible. It doesn’t seem to have much effect, probably because Gally knows Minho can do little other than walk right now, and even that is a painful struggle. “Minho, come on,” Alby says. “He hasn’t woken up yet, and he probably won’t wake up in the next ten minutes, so you can take that time to tell us what the hell happened, because, frankly, we’d all like to know. Was it a Griever? An accident?”

Minho huffs, clenching his jaw. “I’m going upstairs to see him.” He says it more to Gally than Alby, because Gally is the one standing in his way. “And then I can tell you whatever you need to know.” _But I need to see him first._

Gally and Alby look at each other for a minute before Alby sighs. “Okay,” Alby says, and Gally lowers his arm. Minho would like to bound up the stairs but his legs won’t let him, so he settles for moving as fast as he possibly can, a sort of sideways shuffle that probably looks painful. Judging by the tenseness of the atmosphere, it probably looks awkward, too.

“He’s in the usual room,” Alby says as Minho reaches the top of the stairs, and Minho hurries across the creaky floors to the Grieving Room, near the end of the hall. He bursts into the room with little concern for the noise it makes, but, upon catching sight of Newt, he freezes in the doorway.

Newt is sleeping, quietly, beneath the covers, face pale but free of dirt and tears. He’s not screaming, or moving uncontrollably, or even tense. He doesn’t _look_ like he’s been stung. There’s a bruise across his cheek, which might be from getting punched after he tried to attack someone, or it might be from the Griever, from falling against the pathway. But one thing is for sure: he’s _breathing._ Steadily, and slowly, his chest rises, and falls, rises, and falls.

Minho breaks out of his stupor and hurries up to the bedside, reaching for Newt’s hand and grasping it without thinking about it, hating the way Newt can’t squeeze his hand back. Newt’s fingers are cold, but there is a heartbeat thudding through them.

For a moment, there is silence, and then Gally says, “Want to tell us what’s going on, shank?”

Minho doesn’t look up from Newt’s face. “What’s happened to him. Has he been stung?”

“Come on, shank,” Gally says, annoyance and maybe anger laced thick through his voice. “We said you could see him, not that you could ask a million questions -“ Gally’s voice cuts off suddenly.

Then Alby says, “He hasn’t been stung. So far we haven’t found any evidence a Griever even touched him, though I don’t know what else this -” a flutter out of the corner of Minho’s eye, that seems to be Alby waving his hands around, “could be from. He’s got a broken wrist and cracked ribs, both of which Jeff set, and bruises all over his body, and -“ a hesitation, “several breaks in the bones of his foot. Jeff and Clint spent hours trying to set it last night but I don’t know how well it worked and neither do they. He may not -“ Alby cut himself off. “Look, that’s the prognosis, okay, so now it’s your turn to talk.”

Minho finally looks up to meet Alby’s eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I don’t have that much to tell you.”

“You should sit.” The voice comes from behind Minho, and he startles, but it’s just Clint, having appeared out of the dark corner of the room, pushing a chair. He nudges it against the backs of Minho’s knees. “Your body needs the rest, so if you’re gonna insist on being here, I’m gonna insist you do it sitting down.” Minho sits without complaint, and immediately the aching of his legs and spine lessens. He would moan with relief, if he were alone.

Alby and Gally finally enter the room fully, Gally going to perch on the desk in the corner, beside the window, Alby coming to stand on the other side of Newt’s bed. Clint takes this as his cue to leave the room and shuts the door behind himself, leaving them in silence.

“You obviously found him,” Alby says, “right? But how did you know he was hurt? You were in separate sections. And how did you find him?”

Minho settles back in his chair, but doesn’t let go of his grip on Newt’s hand. “I was running my route, yeah? And I was just finishing up the day, checking out a short paths, a few dead ends, that I had spotted when I headed out for the day, when I heard someone -“ He gritted his teeth a bit. “Someone screaming. And I realized it was coming from Section Five, which meant it and to be Newt. So I turned around, and I ran back, and - I guess I got lucky. I found him, and I managed to convince him to come with me, and then I carried him back -“

“Wait,” Gally interrupts, waving a hand through the air. “Sorry, but - convince him? You mean to tell me he _wanted_ you to leave him there?”

“Well, yeah,” Minho says. “We were pretty far from the wall and he didn’t think we would make it back in time if I was carrying him so he tried to convince me to go on without him.” Gally looks mildly, reluctantly impressed. “Anyway, I ran back to the doors with him on my back, and then - well, you know the rest. He was conscious most of the time. I think he only really passed out once we got back into the Glade.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Alby presses. “When you found him, did he say anything about what happened?”

“No,” Minho says honestly. “I asked him if he’d been stung, and he said he hadn’t, and I asked him how he was hurt, and he said just his leg, but that was about it.”

Alby leans back, looking troubled. He looks down at Newt’s face with a contemplating look on his face. Finally, after a long moment, he speaks, looking back up at Minho. “Think you can repeat this story to the Keepers?”

“Can they come here? I don’t want to -“ _I don’t want to leave him,_ Minho thinks, but he doesn’t say it aloud. Gally is already rolling his eyes. 

Alby glances between Minho and Gally, then says, “Sure.”

Minho shrugs. “Then I don’t see why not. Bring ‘em in.”

—

“Look, I’ve said it fifty times and I’ll say it again, I don’t _know -“_

“But it was probably a Griever,” Clint says, clenching his fingers around the edge of the tabletop he’s sitting on. “We’ve established that, right?”

When Alby had said ‘repeat this’, Minho had thought it would be just that - just him repeating himself. But the Keepers have been in here interrogating Minho for at least an hour now, and all he wants to do is crawl into bed next to Newt and sleep. “Probably,” Minho says again, and there seems to be a collective sigh from around the room. The Keepers seem to expect a perfectly laid out narrative, that, frankly, Minho doesn’t have. “Look, it didn’t happen to me, okay? All I know is that I heard screaming from Section Five and I tried to get to him as soon as possible. He said his leg was hurt, and that he hadn’t been stung, and then he sort of - passed out on me. Literally. So I really don’t know what else you guys want to hear. It was probably a Griever. How else would this have happened?” _But then Grievers don’t leave unless they sting you,_ Minho thinks, and he glances around the room and knows everyone else is thinking it too. Zart even opens his mouth, but then he shuts it again, seemingly thinking better of voicing his comment.

Alby finally seems to decide this is enough. “Okay, shanks, the day’s coming to an end,” he says, pushing himself off the wall he’s been leaning against. He claps his hands together and the other Keepers slowly get to their feet. “We got an hour ‘till nightfall and two ‘till dinner, so try to get your stuff ready.” The room quickly clears out, leaving just Alby, Minho, and Gally, who’s lingering in the doorframe. Alby gives Gally a look and after a second glance at Newt on the bed, he too clears out.

“I’m just going to -“ Alby gestures to doorway and heads out. At the last minute, as he’s pulling the door shut behind him, he pauses and says, “I’ll be back in a couple hours for dinner. Be decent.”

As the door shuts, Minho takes a second to wonder what he means by that, before he turns back to the bed - where he finds Newt’s eyes are wide open and staring at him.

“Shuck,” Minho exclaims, heart rate spiking. He lets out a shaky exhale. “Shuck, Newt, you just about gave me a heart attack.” He takes another deep breath.

Newt doesn’t say anything - no apology, no joke. He just stares at Minho, eyes wide and unblinking, unreadable. _That’s unlike him,_ Minho thinks, and wonders whether it was possible that Newt was halfway-stung. Is that a thing? Or maybe Newt was stung and didn’t tell the Med-Jacks, and they didn’t check him thoroughly enough, maybe he’s acting like this because he’s in a dissociative state brought on by the sting, maybe this is what happens when you don’t get the Griever Serum - 

“Hey,” Newt says finally. His voice rasps. 

“Hey,” Minho manages, and smiles as best he can. His lips are cracked and dry and it hurts, a bit, but its worth it. “How do you feel?”

Newt looks down at himself and shrugs a little. “Okay, I guess.” He looks back up at Minho and cracks a wry smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks dead inside. “As good as can be expected, I suppose.”

Minho pauses, a second, considering what he’s going to say, and then decides just to come out with it. “Look,” he says uncomfortable, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this, but they keep asking -“

“How it happened,” Newt interrupts him, and when Minho nods, he lets out a long gust of air, more like a whisper than a sigh. He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them, looks at Minho, and closes them again. “I don’t think -“ He sighs again. “I don’t think they’ll want to know.” His voice is quiet and soft like cotton.

“Was it a Griever?” Minho asks, not really understanding what Newt means. “Because they’re all really concerned what that means, a Griever coming out halfway through the day. And, honestly, I am too. Like, that was one of our three _main_ rules, and if that can be broken, does that mean that the other two can be as well? What if the walls start moving in the middle of the day? What if the maze decides to close at noon and trap us all inside?”

“No, they don’t need to worry about that,” Newt says. He sounds sure, but - 

“How do you know?” Minho asks. “If it happened to you -“

“It didn’t happen to me.” Newt looks down at his hands, which he’s knotting together, avoiding Minho’s gaze. “I wasn’t attacked by a Griever, I just - fell.”

“Fell? Fell from where? You’re not saying you tripped and got these - ”

“No, I, um, fell from higher up.” Newt is resolutely not meeting Minho’s gaze. His fingers are twining together on his lap now, contorting and weaving into a patchwork of pale, callused skin.

“How high up?”

“Uh, as far as the ivy goes up?”

“What?” Minho leans forward, eyebrows raised, but Newt still isn’t looking at him. “Newt, what the hell were you doing up there? Newt? Newt!” Finally Newt glances at him, but only briefly, barely long enough for Minho to register the fearin his eyes, before he’s looking away again. 

“I climbed up there.”

“Why?”

“I was going to -“ Newt shakes his head, running his tongue over his teeth, jaw clenching. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does matter,” Minho says, because he has a horribly feeling rising in his stomach, like bile, like coagulated blood. “Why were you up there?” Nothing. “Newt!”

“I wanted to fall, okay!” Newt looks up from his hands, eyes blazing with sudden anger. Minho is so taken aback he actually moves back in his chair. “I climbed as high as I could go and then I jumped because I bloody hate this place, Minho, I hate this bloody Glade and the bloody Homestead and the bloody fields and most of all I hate the bloody Maze, I hate it so much that nothing else matters! Have you ever thought about how trapped we all are? We are stuck in a box fear, Minho, fear and our own inadequacies, have you ever thought of it that way, I have not gone a day without feeling so bloody claustrophobic I can barely breathe, so don’t act like - don’t - just don’t act like that!”

Newt sits back against the headboard, leaving Minho reeling. “I - had no idea you felt that way,” he says, and Newt makes a sound that almost seems like a laugh, but sounds kind of like a sob too. “Why didn’t you ever come to me?”

Newt makes that sound again. “Please,” he says. “You don’t need me, Minho. Nobody here _needs_ me. Everyone’s got someone else. Alby and Gally, Clint and Jeff, you and Ben -“

“Look, I may be friends with Ben, but I’m better friends with you.” Newt doesn’t look at Minho. “You’re - look, you’re more than my best friend, okay, you’re - you’re the closest thing I have to - I don’t know - you are the closest thing I have in here. Okay?” Minho’s pretty sure his voice sounds watery and thin, but the lump in his throat is thick. “And - and I wouldn’t be able to deal with it if you - if something happened to you. I wouldn’t be able to deal with it, okay, I probably would send myself off one of those goddamn walls -“ Newt sucks in a breath at that, but Minho keeps going, “so get that thought out of your head that no one needs you, because _I_ need you, and we are going to find a way out of here, you and me, we are going to run this maze until we find a way out, and we _will_ find a way out, Newt, and then we’ll be free, you and me, to do whatever we want.”

Minho sucks in a breath of air. Newt is staring at him with something unreadable in his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be able to be a runner, anymore,” Newt finally says, without breaking his gaze away from Minho’s. “I think my foot has shucked that up.”

Minho shakes his head a bit. “Fine. I’ll be a runner, I’ll help find a way out of the Maze, and in the meantime you’ll stay here and make sure we don’t all die in the process. That’s more important than being a runner, anyway.”

They stare at each other for another long moment, and for a second, Minho thinks, if he leans forward, if he tightens his grip on Newt’s palm, if he reches for the clump of hair that’s fallen across Newt’s face - 

But then Newt breaks his gaze and turns to look out the window on the other side of the room. Minho follows his gaze. The sun is setting. The doors are going to close soon, and the Gladers are going to work for a little while longer before coming in for dinner with Frypan. Newt is going to have an audience, soon.

“Can we - can we not tell anyone about this?” Newt asks, his voice so small Minho doesn’t hear it at first. “I - I don’t mean say it was a Griever, because that would freak everyone out, but could we just say I - I dunno, I was climbing a wall for recon, or something, and slipped?”

Minho watches the light sparkle through Newt’s eyelashes. He loves the lack of tear stains on Newt’s cheeks. “Alright,” he says, and Newt doesn’t look his way, and he doesn’t say thank you, but it passes between them anyway. 

 _Guess the rules of the Maze haven’t been broken after all,_ Minho thinks. He watches the doors close.

**Author's Note:**

> As I stated above, this can be either Book!Verse or Movie!Verse, depending on how you prefer they got into the Glade. However, it does abide the movie's hierarchy of power (Alby, then Newt, then Gally), and Gally's characterization probably leans towards the Movie!Verse. Of course, all of this excepts the obvious canon divergence I made, wherein Minho finds Newt in the Maze rather than Alby.
> 
> This is my first TMR fic, so sorry if I messed up any widely-accepted facts: I'm new here. If there are any errors you spotted (either canonically or grammatically), feel free to leave me a message in the comments! Title comes from Flashed Junk Mind, by Milky Chance.


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